Twice in recent months the Deaf Community ofFlorida was burned by the appearance of fakeinterpreters at public events. Fed up, the statelegislators have passed a bill, awaitingsignature of the governoer to require that onlycertified ASL interpreters can do the job atpublic events.

— busy being a deaf celebrity and as deaf public servant

Not too many celebrities also serve as publicservants. Deaf Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) is busymaking public appearances at events. Butwhen he is home in Santa Monica, CA, hehas another job – as deputy sheriff with theSan Luis Obispo County sheriff’s office. Whenpeople ask him about his past Incredible HulkTV roles, he does not get tired of it!

The nation’s #1 ASL interpreter is Julie Mertz.Her job title is FIUS, which spelled out in fullis First Interpreter of the United States. Thismeans she is the President’s ASL interpreter.Glamorous job in a glamorous setting? Well,she said:

The White House is not necessarily your typicaljob, as I sometimes work long hours, sometimeshours change at the last minute and myfamily has been extremely supportive of me!

The First Dates TV program is popular in the UnitedKingdom. For the first time in program history,a segment will involve a deaf man. There are manyreality TV programs in USA – but deaf participants?Why not!

– deaf tourists without interpreters

At the New York Times Travel Show that took placelast week, there was a discussion about givingaccommodations, meaning interpreters, for deaftourists. Two comments stood out:

Shoshannah Stern, who is deaf, has a number of actingroles in movies and TV. During one scene she had tofloat on her back in the pool with her eyes closed.Everyone knew she was deaf – but when the directorshouted “action” she was the last to know about it!If her eyes were open she could tell when thedirector asked for action, but it was impossiblewith her eyes closed. It took a lot of time to makecompromises with the scene which involved the director,the interpreter, the camera man, fellow actorsand Shoshonnah. It finally worked. A picture is at:

George Washington University said four universitydepartments are involved in a task force to makesure their web sites are accessible. The reasonwhy 100 percent accessibility is difficult, ifnot impossible is because technology is alwaysbeing updated and web content changing all thetime. It affects tab navigation, video captioningand photo captions. Some changes are easy toupdate; other changes take a lot of time to fix.

— toughest job in serving the deaf

What is the toughest job serving the deaf?Many may think teaching the deaf in a classroomis a tough job – but some said captioners havethe toughest job! Captioners don’t like tomake mistakes and it puts a lot of pressureon them to try to be perfect all the time.

It is shocking. The Cleveland City council turned downa deaf man’s request for an interpreter during councilmeetings. They felt this deaf person “can” hear wellenough with headphones and had no need for ASLinterpreter! A picture is at:

A comic book critic said that deaf characters areimpossible to dress up to make them look deaf.He was referring to Man-Bat, a Batman villain,a bat zoologist looking for a bat sonar that wouldcure his deafness. Impossible to dress up?What about hearing aids? What about CI’s?

— four Wisconsin cities stop TV proceedings

These cities in Wisconsin – Appleton, Neenah, Menashaand Fox Crossing are no longer televising itscouncil proceedings. Same story – these proceedingshave not been captioned. Will they caption andthen put back these proceedings on TV in the nearfuture? Hope so.